The long wait for the 2023 Major League Baseball (MLB) season is over, much to the delight of baseball fans the length and breadth of the country. All 30 teams go into the new campaign with a clean slate as they mount a challenge to become World Series champions. The New York Yankees, baseball’s most successful franchise, hopes to end its 13-season drought regarding World Series victories and become world champions for the 28th time.
The New York Yankees have appeared in a record 40 World Series, winning 27 and losing 13. However, it was in 2009 when the Yankees last got their hands on the famous Commissioner’s Trophy, a wait approaching one-and-a-half decades. Last season saw the Yankees come agonizingly close to making a 41st appearance World Series appearance after a successful campaign. Despite faltering during July and August, the Yankees ended 2022 with a 99-63 record, enough to top the American League East Division for the 20th time.
Falling Apart in the American League Championship
After progressing from the American League Division Series with a 3-2 victory over the Cleveland Guardians, baseball fans that liked to enjoy legal online sports betting in Alabama to New York were backing the Yankees for World Series glory. The American League Championship pitted the Yankees against the Houston Astros, who were flying high and finished the regular season 106-56. Disappointingly, the Astros made short work of the Yankees and brushed them aside 4-0 in the series, including a 5-0 demolition in Game 3 at the world-famous Yankees Stadium.
The Yankees should win the AL East again this year despite the Toronto Blue Jays and the Tampa Bay Rays looking like they have improved. Much of the Yankees’ hopes are pinned on the roster staying free of injuries or at least having fewer injuries and niggles than in 2022. On that front, things have not started great, with the $162 million winter signing Carlos Rodon sitting out the Yankees’ opening-day victory over the San Francisco Giants. Rodon has an injured left forearm muscle, a similar injury to the one Rodon suffered while with the Giants in 2022. Four other pitchers, Tommy Kahnle, Frankie Montas, Luis Severino, and Lou Trivino, are keeping Rodon on the inactive roster.
A Vastly Talented Roster
When Aaron Boone has a fully fit roster at his disposal, the Yankees look incredibly strong. In addition to the aforementioned Rodon and Severino, Boone can call upon the likes of Gerrit Cole and Nestor Cortes, a foursome that can rub shoulders with any team in the MLB. Of course, nobody can or should forget about Aaron Judge, who set an AL record for the most home runs in a season with 62 in 2022, which broke a long-standing 61-year record that Roger Maris set.
Despite a roster packed with MLB superstars, it could be rookie shortstop Anthony Volpe that gets the pulses racing in 2023. The 21-year-old New Jersey native was the 30th overall pick in the 2019 MLB Draft and hit the headlines during the Yankees’ first live batting practice, hitting two home runs off the first two pitches! Volpe played college baseball for Vanderbilt University before turning out for a few minor-league outfits. Volpe earned a spot as the Yankees’ starting shortstop after a spring training tryout that saw him compete with Oswald Peraza.
If Not The Yankees, Who?
Yankees fans are full of hope and optimism for the 2023 MLB season, as would you be had you witnessed your team win 99 games. However, some incredible teams are fighting it out in what could be one of the best MLB seasons in living memory. Reigning champions, the Houston Astros, are early favorites, and rightly so, but you cannot write off the chances of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, or the San Diego Padres. There is a lot of baseball to be played between now and the World Series, but the Yankees should be in the mix, that is for certain.
